7 h. ago From Suffolk to Margate: Exploring the lands of Turner’s fire and Constable’s rain

With a new exhibition celebrating the rival artists at the Tate Britain this winter, Michael Hodges explores the parts of England that inspired some of their greatest works

Events

29 h. ago Picturesque spa town with waterfalls and inviting pools is 'hidden world'

Hidden within the rolling hills of Derbyshire this town acts as the perfect getaway with stunning landscapes to explore nearby and a delightful town to stay in after your long walks

Politics

8 d. ago The Guardian view on Turner and Constable: radical in different ways | Editorial

Capturing the changing landscapes of the 18th century, the rivals transformed British art. The climate emergency gives new urgency to their workJMW Turner appears on £20 notes and gives his name to Britain’s most avant garde contemporary art prize. John Constable’s work adorns countless mugs and jigsaws. Both are emblematic English artists, but in the popular imagination, Turner is perceived as daring and dazzling, Constable as nice but a little bit dull. In a Radio 4 poll to find the nation’s favourite painting, Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire – which even features in the James Bond film Skyfall – won. Constable’s The Hay Wain came second. Born only a year later, Constable was always playing catch-up: Turner became a member of the Royal Academy at 27, while Constable had to wait until he was 52.To mark the 250th anniversary of their births, Tate Britain is putting on the first major exhibition to display the two titans head to head. Shakespeare and Marlowe, Mozart and Salieri, Van ...

Politics

8 d. ago Turner v Constable: Tate Britain exhibition invokes long history of artistic rivalries

From Michelangelo and Leonardo to Picasso and Matisse, bitter feuds have defined art. But are contemporary artists more collaborative than their renaissance predecessors?“He has been here and fired a gun,” John Constable said of JMW Turner. A shootout between these two titans would make a good scene for in a film of their lives, but in reality all Turner did at the 1832 Royal Academy exhibition was add a splash of red to a seascape, to distract from the Constable canvas beside it.That was by far the most heated moment in what seems to us a struggle on land and sea for supremacy in British art. It’s impossible not to see Tate Britain’s new double header of their work this way. For it is a truth universally acknowledged, to paraphrase their contemporary Jane Austen, that when two great artists live at the same time, they must be bitter and remorseless rivals. But is that really so, and does it help or hinder creativity? Continue reading...

Culture

1 week ago Turner & Constable review – boiling portentous skies versus two men and a dog

Tate Britain, London JMW Turner is beaten by John Constable in this mighty show. But who cares when the work is so sublime you can hear the squelching and smell the river?Turner or Constable: who’s the boss? Tate Britain’s exhibition of work by the two artists, subtitled Rivals and Originals, fudges the question. Born a year apart and both alumni of the Royal Academy schools in London, each was keenly aware of what the other was doing, in a British art world that was as febrile and competitive, if immeasurably smaller, than it is today (although you should try the Italian Renaissance if you want full-blooded rivalries and enmities). Sometimes, they sought the same collectors and painted the same subjects. Turner was encouraged from an early age by his father, a Covent Garden wigmaker and barber; Constable was the son of a Suffolk mill owner and grain merchant who wanted him to take over the family business.As well as their contrasting backgrounds, their temperaments could not have b...

Politics

2 w. ago What’s in store for the Scottish legal sector over the next 12 months

Fraser Gillies, managing partner at Wright, Johnston & Mackenzie LLP, explores what the future holds for the Scottish legal landscape

Politics